The Dark Storm (5 page)

“My dad owned an antique shop, so it wasn’t unusual for him to bring home some of the more rare items to
store in our basement vault,” she began. “About a month ago he came back from Africa with some stuff he’d brought from another antique dealer and that’s when things got weird.” She paused to reflect on the last few days she’d spent with her father. “My father was the kind of guy who wouldn’t even raise his voice during an argument, so I was shocked to find a gun in his bedroom closet. Not your run-of-the-mill ‘protect your home and family’ kinda thing. I’m talking M16. Then he tells me that we’re selling our house in Queens.”

“Maybe he just thought the neighborhood wasn’t safe anymore and wanted to move away?” Gabriel offered, trying to believe it himself.

De Mona looked at him. “Gabriel, my father had the house built when he found out my mother was pregnant with me. Even when she ran out on us and took our life savings,” there was scorn in De Mona’s voice, “he still wouldn’t sell the house. Something in Africa rattled him.”

Gabriel nodded, still studying the fork. “And this,” he held it up, “did he bring this back from Africa too?”

De Mona shrugged. “I had assumed so, since I had never laid eyes on it before three days ago. When I asked him what it was, all he would say was that it belonged to some friends he had at the church and that we’d be returning it as soon as we relocated.”

“Don’t suppose you knew who these friends were or what church he meant?”

“No,” she half-lied.

“So what made you bring it to me?” Gabriel asked. He motioned to put the fork back in the bag but found himself reluctant. Beneath the tarnish he found it quite beautiful.

“The name,” she told him. “Every so often my father would bring up the name Redfeather. Mostly when it came to the unknown; it was another one of my father’s hobbies.
Often he’d say that the only human he knew who knew more about the arcane than him was this Redfeather. He wanted to consult with your grandfather about the fork before returning it to the church. Since I had never met this Redfeather, I Googled him and came up with you, though I think it was off by a generation or two.”

“Grandfather.” Gabriel nodded. “My granddad knows a great many things about a great many things. He might be able to tell us a little more.” Gabriel glanced at his watch. “He’s probably still up.”

“You think your grandfather can help out?” she asked with hope in her voice.

“Only one way to find out.” He stuffed the fork back into the sack.

When they exited the library, the first thing De Mona noticed was the silence. She looked up and down the darkened block and there wasn’t a soul in sight, which was odd for a Friday night in New York City, on a college campus no less. A tickling wave rolled up her arms and across her neck, tightening the skin as it moved.

“Something wrong?” Gabriel asked, noticing the change in her facial expression.

“I was just thinking how quiet it was,” she said, concentrating on not letting her control slip. “You got a car?”

“On a student budget, are you kidding? What’s the matter, De Mona?”

De Mona sniffed the air and frowned. “Which way to the closest subway station?”

“Just over on Lexington.” He motioned with his head. “De Mona, what’s wrong with you? What’s going on?”

Without warning De Mona grabbed Gabriel by the arm and yanked him towards her. He was surprised by the suddenness and the force as he flew by De Mona and into a parked car. He’d almost thought she was attacking
him until he heard the loud crashing behind him. When he was able to see straight he saw a man dressed in an off-the-rack brown suit that had its back cut out, like the corpses they dressed in funeral homes. The creature turned its dead eyes to Gabriel and hissed, showing broken and jagged yellow teeth. Gabriel started to bolt, but he was cut off by another man.

The man was handsome. Not movie-star handsome, more like an easy-on-the-eyes pro athlete. He had a thin, angular face with Asian eyes and skin the color of soft moonlight. His stringy hair, that was so black that it could’ve passed for blue in the right light, hung freely around his broad shoulders. A black motorcycle jacket hugged his frame like armor, bearing patches from different wars. In ancient times he was the warlord of the death god Thanos, but now he served Belthon.

“Knight!” he roared. “I am called Riel, Shepherd of the Dead and King Maker. By the will of my lord Belthon, I have come to claim your weapon and your head!” he shouted, and waved the blade in a low arc, leaving an eerie trail of greenish smoke. Under the streetlight Gabriel could see the scorch mark that ran up the blade’s crease and fanned out to cover the point. It was called Poison, the burning death, and a strike from it would cause just that.

“I’ve already sent one of you boys home packing this week, hell spawn; don’t make yourself number two,” De Mona warned.

“You shouldn’t throw stones, little girl,” Riel laughed. He turned and addressed the walking corpses: “The hunt has been called and the prize is flesh!” Riel pointed Poison at De Mona.

“Flesh!” the Stalker in the brown suit snarled before slamming its shoulder into Gabriel, sending him crashing over the hood of the car. He hit the ground, shattering his
glasses and feeling like he’d cracked a rib, but it was nothing compared to what the advancing Stalker was going to do when it reached him. The Stalker had just about closed the distance when something grabbed the back of its tattered suit jacket. It turned to see a pair of moonlit eyes staring at him from the face of the girl. With Gabriel being out of sight she could take the gloves off, and that meant trouble for the Stalker.

When Gabriel hit the ground the fork slid down the street and lodged itself under a car’s wheel. The dazed boy managed to stagger to his feet and move his gut out of the way as Riel tried to splay him. The demon came around in an arc, trying to split Gabriel in two with his cursed blade, but the former acrobat was able to bounce out of the way. When the blade hit the concrete it left a scorch mark.

Gabriel shuffled his feet once and hit Riel in the jaw with an awkward right cross. Riel smiled the blow off and retuned the favor with a blow to the chest. Gabriel hit the ground and bounced twice before landing in the middle of the street. Before he could even shake the cobwebs, Riel was lifting Gabriel by the front of his shirt.

“What cowardice.” Riel shook the frightened young man as if he were an unruly child. “One of God’s chosen shakes in the face of evil.” He pulled Gabriel close enough so that he could smell the sickly stench of the grave on Riel’s breath. “Where is your God now?”

In response Gabriel grunted and slammed both of his legs into Riel’s chest and rolled backward into a crouch. Riel swung the blade, but Gabriel was quicker and managed to scramble under a car.

“Come out, Knight. I promised to make your death painless,” Riel taunted.

Gabriel lay under the car shaking like a leaf. He had
come across some unexplainable things in his studies of the forgotten and unknown, but nothing compared to what he was witnessing in the flesh. He shut his eyes as he saw Riel’s fingers grip the edge of the car’s fender and begin to lift. Slowly the automobile began to come off the ground, and Gabriel knew he would soon be exposed. “Somebody please help me,” he whimpered, covering his head with his hands.

“Release me.”

Gabriel almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the voice. It sounded like the speaker was whispering in his ear, but there was no one else under the car.

“
Release me and know my name
,” the voice went on.

Gabriel looked near the front wheel and saw the fork peeking out of its wrapping. As if of its own accord, his hand shot out and grabbed it. This time it was hot to his skin, almost to the point of burning. A wave of energy went from the fork up through his arm and settled around his heart like a warming calm. Holding the fork by its broken shaft, he rolled out from under the other side of the car. If the thing intended to kill him, then Gabriel would die on his feet.

“So, you’ve decided to fight?” Riel smiled. “Good.” Bounding over the car, he charged Gabriel.

Gabriel stood with his head half-bowed, waiting for the death blow that the demon would surely deliver. Overhead there was a rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance, but the meteorologist had predicted clear skies that night. Lightning whipped from the ground, running up through the fork and dispersing into the sky. The dull fork began to glow softly, radiating power through Gabriel’s body. The power soon pulsed so brightly that Riel had to back away, but the light didn’t harm Gabriel. He looked curiously yet knowingly at the fork as it began to change. The
shaft extended until it was twice the length of a man’s arm, with runes appearing along its side. The two points straightened, passing lightning messages between each other, occasionally consulting the shaft. The broken fork was now a glowing rod of tremendous power.

De Mona danced around like a pro boxer, landing quick punches on the thing’s exposed chin. Her fist landed with the force of small jackhammers, breaking its jaw and eye socket, but the thing kept coming. The brown-suited Stalker charged her awkwardly, slashing its claws at her midsection. She managed to avoid one clawed hand, but the other tore the front of her shirt.

“You gotta do better than that,” she said just before delivering a roundhouse kick to the thing’s head, cracking its skull. The Stalker backpedaled but was back on her before she had a chance to catch her breath. The creature raked a hand across her face, causing De Mona to reflexively reach up to protect her eyes, leaving her stomach exposed. With inhuman strength it drove its talons into her gut, tearing through the shirt, but when it made contact with her stone-like skin the bones in the borrowed fingers snapped. The air around De Mona wavered and her body seemed to bulk up beneath the tight black shirt. The full light of the moon shone in her eyes as she let her gaze roll over the thing in the brown suit. Her control had slipped.

De Mona let out a sound that couldn’t be produced by anything human. The Stalker swung its good arm around
and raked its nails across De Mona’s face, but they couldn’t even break the skin. Drawing on all its might, it slammed a fist into De Mona’s gut, breaking every bone in the already-damaged hand. Just before she plunged her index and middle fingers into its eyes, spearing its brain, the monster got a glimpse of the face beneath the mask and it shuddered.

Tossing the already-decomposing corpse to the side, De Mona looked for Gabriel, intending to rescue him from the thing that called himself Riel. What she saw froze her. The fork had changed into its true form in the hands of young Redfeather. Though he claimed to be ignorant concerning the artifact, the thing answered to his every whim as he matched Riel strike for strike. The way Gabriel moved, you’d have thought he and the relic were old friends. She still intended saving his ass, but when the battle was done he would tell her what she needed to know about the fork whether he wanted to or not.

Before she could move to help, another Stalker seemed to appear out of thin air and slammed into the distracted girl. This one must’ve been a pro wrestler in life, because it was built like a tank with tree stumps for limbs. At the same time the creature made its second lunge, De Mona threw herself out of the way. Pain shot from her scalp and spread throughout her face as the Stalker grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked. Instead of trying to pull away, she spun towards the creature like a tiny cyclone, ripping away chunks of flesh each time her clawed hands struck the creature. The flesh just over the corpse’s ribs and heart sizzled as the poison from her nails killed the flesh. The creature howled and loosened its grip enough for her to slip out of its reach.

De Mona snapped her hands at the wrists, flicking the
Stalker’s bodily fluids and the excess poison to the ground. She raked her nails across one another, causing a faint spark, and glared at the Stalker. “Come get it.”

“You’ll need more than a light show to save you, Knight,” Riel said, circling Gabriel while trying to shield his eyes from the trident’s glare. “But it’s good to see that you do have at least a little fight in you.” He tossed his blade from one hand to the other. “Let’s have at it then.”

Riel moved with inhuman speed as he charged Gabriel, Poison swinging in a high arc, only to meet the head of the trident instead of Gabriel’s throat. When the two ancient weapons collided they sent a ripple of power out like a stone hitting a still pond. Riel tried to force Poison into Gabriel’s neck, but the man’s strength rivaled that of the demon. Gabriel’s brown eyes seemed to melt in on themselves, leaving behind two silver pools. Within these pools identical storm clouds rolled over a barren hill, lightning flashing in their wake.

“This cannot be,” Riel hissed, with fear edging into his voice.

Gabriel smiled triumphantly at Riel. “Ah, but it is, lapdog of the dark lord. The storm master has returned.” With the force of his will Gabriel pushed outward, flinging Riel backward. “And my rain shall cleanse the earth!”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay dirty for a while,” Riel said smugly, staggering to his feet. When inhabiting a host’s body he also adapted some of the demon’s resilience but could still be broken. The host’s ribs had been cracked, but the body was still functional. “Lord Titus will have your heart for this, dog!”

Gabriel cocked his head as if he’d heard something in the distance. His face suddenly twisted and the thunder
became louder. “You serve the betrayer? The whore of Belthon was supposed to be as a god, but instead he commands an army of half demons and walking corpses,” Gabriel chuckled in the voice that wasn’t quite his; lightning webbed his lips when he spoke. “I think his death shall be sweetest. But first, back to hell with you.” Gabriel pointed the trident for emphasis.